In today's competitive business environment it is becoming increasingly important for business people to have access to a personal communications network at all times. Accordingly, portable radiotelephones, such as cellular telephones and cordless telephones, have become commonplace.
One popular variety of radiotelephone has two main housing elements connected by a hinge, allowing the telephone to be folded into a compact “closed” configuration when it is not in use, and to be unfolded into an “open” configuration when it is in use. The larger of the two housing elements, hereinafter referred to as the “body portion,” normally contains most of the electronics required for operation of the radiotelephone. The smaller housing element, hereinafter referred to as the “flip element,” normally contains at most a microphone and a ringing element. Radiotelephones of this type are described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,845,772 and 5,185,790.
Radiotelephones of the flip element type provide a compact means to access voice communications virtually anywhere. Often, however, business people have the need to access information that is not available over the telephone or that cannot be easily-or efficiently communicated in a telephone conversation. For example, a person may have the need to send or receive text messages, access remote databases, or access a directory of addresses and telephone numbers of business associates. Heretofore, radiotelephones of the flip element type have not provided a satisfactory means for their users to access, send or receive non-voice information. Consequently, radiotelephone users have had to make use of separate devices for these purposes, such as facsimile machines, portable personal computers, electronic personal organizers and personal digital assistants.
While some radiotelephones of the flip element type have included a visual display, such as the telephones disclosed in U.S. Design Pat. Nos. 298,036 and 337,763, these radiotelephones have heretofore incorporated the display on the body portion of the device. Because much of the surface area of the body portion is used for various required elements of the telephone (such as a keypad, an earpiece, on/off and volume switches, etc.), the display is typically made small in order to preserve the compact size of the unit. Consequently, only a small amount of information can be presented to the user at a time, limiting the use of the display to relatively rudimentary functions such as the display of a single telephone number. Such small displays cannot be used effectively for more advanced communications functions that require presentation of relatively large amounts of visual information.
Therefore, a new radiotelephone is needed that provides a larger visual display with enhanced features, and the capability to send, receive, and store non-voice information.